


I don't need light

by llien



Series: your sleeplessness; your grief [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, Hearts, Minor Violence, Spoilers - Kingdom Hearts III
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 21:00:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17629592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llien/pseuds/llien
Summary: “What—” Vanitas stumbled as Sora yanked him, more darkness billowing off of him in a disturbed wave.“Whatare you doing?”“I’m saving you,” Sora hissed, digging his fingers into the soft flesh of Vanitas’ forearm. “No one is going to run from me again.”Or, the one where Sora decides to save Vanitas.





	I don't need light

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Hana" by Asa-Chang and Junray. 
> 
> _It is not as if an "I" exists independently over here, and then simply loses a "you" over there, especially if the attachment to "you" is part of what composes who "I" am. If I lose you, under these conditions, then I not only mourn the loss, but become inscrutable to myself. Who "am" I, without you?... On one level, I think I have lost "you" only to discover that "I" have gone missing as well._

Dust motes whirled around in the evening sunlight as night began to rise over the Keyblade Graveyard, surrounding the leaking darkness stretching thin into the sky.

The tall walls caging them in began to cut off the light’s reach, leaving sharp cants on the ground delineating between light and dark. It stretched across them, the shadows falling just short of Vanitas’ boots.

Sora stared at his own face cast in shadows, golden eyes meeting his with a strange knowing look. He felt deep inside him a rage, an unbound terror rampaging, grabbing onto his ribs to claw its way up. Sora trembled with the force of it.

He’d lost his heart, he’d lost his body — and now, they’d taken who he was, too?

“Your face!” Sora said, drawing back. He understood, suddenly and quickly, why Lea kept talking about ironing out the details. There were a million questions whirling around like a hurricane in his mind. 

Vanitas laughed, a short rough chuckle that belied little genuine amusement. “I’m the piece of Ventus that was taken away, and you’re the piece Ventus needed to be whole again.” He held one hand out as if cradling the imaginary fragmented remains of a heart, and then the other, “So… why shouldn’t you and I look exactly the same?”

It… made sense, in the whole Ven and Roxas being identical kind of way. Still, Sora wasn’t sure how happy he was about someone looking like him, but…  _ off. _

Vanitas continued, clenching his hands. “You define me, Sora, the same way that Ventus does. We are brothers who, together, make a greater whole.”

That frustration bubbled, spreading under his skin, curling his hands. “Then why won’t you stand by our side?” Sora held his hand over his heart that had housed so many, and kept bonds with many others. “Instead of with darkness?”

_ Why do you look like me but decide to stay with darkness? _

Sora was tired of fighting to keep people beside him.

Vani scoffed. “Because I  _ am  _ darkness. And I do stand by your side, Sora,” Vanitas said, glancing up and down him. “I’m the shadow you cast. How much closer could I be?”

Sora shifted in place, glancing at his shadow stretching thin and long, at the sun dipping lower behind the walls. At the shadows now dappling over Vanitas’ shoes and ankles. He dug his nails into his palms, shaking his head.

“But I didn’t—”

“I didn’t ask for this,” Ventus said, voice snapping into the space between them with alarming clarity. The lilt his words normally carried was buried beneath the scathing tone. Vanitas’ alarming eyes focused intently on Ven. “To be shifted apart, nice and neat. We should be free to choose. Not just light, not just darkness.  _ We  _ decide what we are.”

Vanitas stared for a moment, before shaking his head. The darkness was seeping off of him in thick smog filled waves now, billowing when the wind blew. “But… Ventus, I  _ did  _ decide who I am. You see?”

Ven lifted his chin. “And what you are is  _ darkness?” _

Vani tilted his head down, eyes falling to the ground and dark lashes obscuring his expression there. “And what I am is darkness.”

Sora could feel the apathy rolling off Ven, but he couldn’t understand how Ven could so clearly see what Sora did — the loneliness — and still not care.

Ven shrugged, looking away. “Okay.”

Sora stared in disbelief. “Okay?  _ Okay?  _ How is that okay? Vanitas!”

Vanitas gave another one of those arrogant laughs, shaking his head and displacing the smoke momentarily. 

Sora could feel the doors closing, knew what was happening, and that rage consumed him.

_ “Vanitas!”  _ He snapped, storming forward. He wasn’t going to chase another person. He wasn’t going to shout  _ wait!  _ and run desperately after a person determined to disappear. This time, he was going to hold on.

A part of Sora was in Vanitas, and as long as that was true, then he wasn’t pure darkness.

Vanitas looked down from the sky, startled, and Sora grabbed his forearm with a grip that he knew hurt. Sora had done this before, and he could do it again.

“What—” Vanitas stumbled as Sora yanked him, more darkness billowing off of him in a disturbed wave.  _ “What  _ are you doing?”

“I’m saving you,” Sora hissed, digging his fingers into the soft flesh of Vanitas’ forearm. “No one is going to run from me again.”  _ Not again, not again, not again— _

“I don’t care!” Vanitas seethed, leaning close enough to nearly brush noses with Sora. “I’m done, Sora, and you can’t do anything.”

The Power of Waking had been sleeping in Sora this entire time. Then, the same power that had rescued Ventus and Roxas and Xion would be there, too. He closed his eyes, searching deep inside.

If he’d woken Ven up… then he could put Vanitas to sleep, too.

Hidden in the depths, in the shadows of the final world, the final meeting place, a heart station rose from the darkness. It surged forward with a deafening cacophony, shaking the very core of Sora’s heart, but he didn’t falter. The dark empty platform trembled, then settled.

“What are you doing? Sora! Sora,  _ stop!” _

Sora opened his eyes and found light splintering into fractals from Sora’s left hand on Vanitas, streaming from between his fingers and everywhere he touched Vanitas. 

Vanitas had wide, frightened, angry eyes, and Sora continued, pushing past the sudden doubt to trust his heart as he always had.

With his right hand raised in a mimicry of Riku’s, Sora shoved his hand deep into Vanitas’ chest.

He gasped, scrambling to grasp at Sora’s wrist. Darkness and light bloomed from the wound, almost blinding in its intensity.  

“Sora!” Ven said, shocked.

“You’re not going, Vanitas,” Sora said. “You don’t belong in darkness!”

He reached, searching, ignoring the feeling of ice water numbing his skin, of the disturbing feeling of  _ something  _ slithering around him, until he found what beat.

Vanitas’ heart felt small. It felt young. Sora grabbed onto it and squeezed.

Vanitas cried out.

Tucked into Sora’s palm was a warm, terrified light shrouded in darkness. Sora would not let it fall again. He wouldn’t fail him. It was an emotion that hadn’t been his, but the memory remained.

“It’s okay,” Sora said, meeting Vanitas’ tear lined eyes between the sunrays and shadows. They were wide in disbelief, in fear. He was trembling before Sora. “You don’t deserve to be alone.”

Like Aqua had been. Like Riku had. Like so many of the hearts Sora now cherished.

“You don’t deserve to be abandoned.”

He ripped Vanitas’ heart from his chest and Vanitas gave a strangled, mournful cry, crumbling to his knees and cradling his chest. Sora cupped his hands around Vanitas’ heart. It glimmered, a beautiful faceted gem dripping inky darkness, pooling in Sora’s palm before it disappeared from the light he bore.

“What did you do,” Vanitas gasped out. He looked up, pale. “What did you do to me!”

“What should’ve happened,” Sora answered. He brought the heart to his lips, tilted his head back, and swallowed.

It felt less like he’d physically eaten it and more like it just melded, passing through him to fall towards the boundary bordering the final world. Sora closed his eyes, watching in his mind’s eye as Vanitas’ heart slowly fell, drifting.

It touched the heart station, and white birds took flight from the center, flying away and revealing Vanitas’ new heart station. He slept almost curled in, as if shielding himself from a blow he couldn’t take. 

Relieved it had worked, Sora opened his eyes and found Vanitas kneeling. He dropped to his knees, reaching for Vanitas before hesitating. Sora clenched his hands on his knees, struggling to find words.

Vanitas spoke first. “It feels…” 

Vanitas met Sora’s gaze, eyes wide and lips barely parted, hair shifting in the breeze. Sora searched his expression, and realized Vanitas was staring at him with awe.

“It feels warm,” Vanitas whispered, tears slipping down his cheeks. “It doesn’t hurt.”

That stunned Sora. It didn’t hurt? What didn’t?

Vanitas laughed, a hollow echo of his earlier cocky amusement. “It doesn’t  _ hurt.  _ I never knew— I only remembered—” He brought his hands to his face, laughing into them. The darkness had stopped rising from him, trickling to nothing. Instead, he began to drift apart in shattered light.

“Sora,” Vanitas murmured. “Maybe it was you I should’ve been looking for.”

The last of him broke apart, becoming nothing.

Sora remained there, mind blank as he felt the rest of Vanitas begin to settle. He’d never been aware of what it had felt to join hearts. He’d either been too young, or asleep. It felt strange. He knew, now, how and where to find Vanitas, where Ven and Roxas and Xion had been a mystery. 

_ I’m not going to stay here. _

The voice spoke sharply, like the embers of a roaring fire, and Sora jumped. 

_ Just long enough to become whole. Then, I’ll set myself free. Or maybe I should rip apart from you? _

Sora couldn’t think of a reply to that fast enough. Ventus was scampering towards him, kicking up dirt to drop to his knees and grab Sora by his shoulders.

“Sora!” Ven hissed angrily. His blond hair settled in his eyes, glimmering an almost golden color in the dying sun. He shook Sora fiercely. “Are you out of your mind? You don’t know what keeping someone like Vanitas in your heart will do!”

Sora let himself be shook once or twice before grabbing onto Ven’s arms. “He can’t do anything! Well, he’s talking, but he can’t do anything but sleep. We just have to wait until he’s whole again.”

He pushed away from Ven, glancing to the find sun fully behind the walls now. They were almost hidden in the growing twilight and shadows. Sora dusted himself off, summoned his keyblade out of curiosity before dismissing it again.

Ven stood, watching Sora warily. “But… why?”

_ Why did you do it? _

Sora cocked his head to the side. “Why not? He needed help. He was just going to be hurt if he stayed like that. Besides…” Sora trailed off, smiling lightly. “He said we were brothers.”

_ Brothers, huh. _

Sora held his hands behind his head. “It’s fine! I can take it! It’s not fair that only you got to sleep and heal. Or what, don’t wanna share, Ven?”

Ven spluttered. “I’m not stingy!”

“Doesn’t seem like it from here,” Soa teased, turning to where Aqua and Terra had chosen to treat their wounds. “Come on! Let’s go help them!”

“Sora!” Ven cried, but Sora didn’t listen, running towards them. 

_ Maybe we’re more alike than I thought. _

“Maybe!” Sora said cheerfully, ignoring the doubt beginning to fester. Vanitas grinned, settling back. 

Maybe.

**Author's Note:**

> I was sad about Vanitas' going like that, so I decided to fix it. Kind of. Written immediately post-game, so it's a bit short and abrupt. Thanks for reading!
> 
> The flower  
> chooses darkness, loves darkness, the flower  
> celebrates darkness, loves darkness, and also cries  
> it cries in darkness  
> Yet, and yet  
> the flower's made to cry by darkness, is selected, celebrates  
> and is loved
> 
> A flower that's never seen light was chosen  
> exhausted, loved, and seems to loved the darkness  
> Oh flower
> 
> The flower answered  
> It answered just once  
> It answered just four times
> 
> I don't need light, please give me water


End file.
